Abstract

Along with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, China is engaging itself with its neighboring countries and many border cities have been strategically positioned as trading nodes linking China to the outside world. This is particularly true with Hekou, a minority-centered border town between China and Vietnam where local minority languages, Chinese, Vietnamese and English are displayed at various spaces. Adopting a critical sociolinguistic ethnography (Heller, 2006; Li, 2017), this study focuses on the intersection of language practices and ideologies by examining the language use and language choices displayed both in public and private signs. Data were collected through linguistic signs displayed at Hekou and individual interviews with local people. Findings indicate that Chinese as China’s official language enjoys the most visibility, and English, though considered as a lingua franca, only acquires symbolic value rather than being used for daily communication at the border town. In contrast, Vietnamese, as a newly emerged foreign language, is acquiring cultural and economic capitals for the local people’ educational and employment opportunities. As a minority-centered border town, the visibility of minority languages on cultural events stands both for tourism boom and for border integrity. The study provides a new context for understanding multilingual practices and China’s border language planning and management in the context of China’s cooperation with Southeast Asian countries.

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